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In this book, Lynne Kelly explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts. In the first part, she examines knowledge systems within historically recorded oral cultures, showing how the link between power and the control of knowledge is established. Analyzing the material mnemonic devices used by documented oral cultures, she demonstrates how early societies maintained a vast corpus of pragmatic information concerning animal behavior, plant properties, navigation, astronomy, genealogies, laws and trade agreements, among other matters. In the second part Kelly turns to the archaeological record of three sites, Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Stonehenge, offering new insights into the purpose of the monuments and associated decorated objects. This book demonstrates how an understanding of rational intellect, pragmatic knowledge and mnemonic technologies in prehistoric societies offers a new tool for analysis of monumental structures built by non-literature cultures.

Offers a new theory for the purpose of Stonehenge and other stone circles in the UK, the great houses of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and the mound-building site of Poverty Point in Louisiana, in a way which applies to many other sites around the world

Identifies objects which have to date defied interpretation as memory aids, such as the Scottish carved stone balls

Explains the complex memory methods and physical memory aids used by oral cultures who are totally dependent on their memories to store all the practical information on which their survival depends

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Product details

Date Published: May 2015

format: Hardback

isbn: 9781107059375

length: 300pages

dimensions: 261 x 182 x 24 mm

weight: 0.81kg

contains: 43 b/w illus. 4 maps 4 tables

availability: Available

Table of Contents

1. Primary orality in the archaeological context 2. Knowledge and power in oral cultures 3. Primary orality and oral mnemonic technologies 4. Material mnemonic technologies 5. Animal and plant knowledge in oral tradition 6. Time and space 7. Case study: the Yolngu system of knowledge 8. Case study: the Pueblo system of knowledge 9. Chaco Canyon in the ancestral Puebloan context 10. Poverty Point in the American Archaic context 11. Stonehenge in the British and Irish Neolithic context 12. Conclusions.

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Author

Lynne Kelly, La Trobe University, VictoriaLynne Kelly is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Arts, Communication and Critical Enquiry at La Trobe University, Melbourne. She is the author of ten books on education, one novel and three popular science titles. Kelly is interested in the question of how non-literate cultures memorise so much about their environment in the absence of writing, which has led her to research the mnemonic technologies of oral cultures.

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